Flirt
by CSI Clue
Summary: Movieverse--a look at Tony's main proclivity


Even when he was little, Tony Stark liked girls.

Some young boys go through a phase when members of the opposite sex are icky and repulsive; the carriers of the dreaded Cooties and deserve to be the recipients of taunts and practical jokes.

Tony never went through that phase.

He found girls to be irresistibly fascinating, and went out of his way to be in their company. He learned he could flirt, and once he had that skill down, was relentless in learning how to charm the females around him. At six he was ruthlessly cute. At nine he was a lady's man, and when puberty set in by thirteen, Anthony Edward Stark was a full-fledged pick-up artist, although limited by opportunity and privacy.

His first kiss had happened at seven. Charlotte 'Charlie' Cabot was the daughter of his mother's sorority sister, and a vivacious flirt in her own right. When she suggested playing House, Tony was agreeable, as long as he got to build a huge office of Legos for his work, and stomp on a few underling stuffed animals. When Charlotte called him home to the other corner of the playroom for a dinner of plastic chicken parts and a cup of juice, he swaggered up, quaffed his Welch's and slipped his arm around Charlotte, planting a good one on her lips.

Charlotte, as it turned out, liked the kiss quite a lot, and told Tony that he was the best husband she'd had all week, which made him feel all funny inside. A good sort of funny; tickly and warm.

Tony knew his dad kissed his mother on the mouth, and that they both liked it very much, given how often they did it. The kiss with Charlotte was definitely fun, so he set out seeking more kisses. It turned out there were a lot of girls who didn't mind being kissed and kissing back.

At twelve, Tony found out that kissing could be more . . . involved. This time Jane Mirabeaux was his infatuation, and during a birthday party for her little brother, took Tony to the mudroom of their mansion in upstate New York for a little lesson in French.

Tony was an excellent student and an instant fan of the art. He took as many opportunities to practice with Jane as he could, and mourned her loss when the Mirabeaux family moved to Boston a few weeks later. To overcome his grief, Tony turned his new skills on Angeline Preston. And Sara Montanez. And Kitty Price.

All of them appreciated it. Tony also discovered that girls were a different shape now, with interesting curves and nubbly projections. He was especially interested in their projections, and when Kitty invited him to check hers out, he did. Unfortunately, he and Kitty were caught before more than a quickly copped feel could happen, and Tony was hauled away to face his father.

Howard Stark was not amused, but he wasn't entirely angry either; Tony came by his passionate nature through two equally hot-blooded parents and his father knew that. Therefore he sat Tony down in his study and grilled the boy on what he knew of biology.

It wasn't enough, and chagrined, Howard Stark took the afternoon to fill in the gaps of his son's grasp of anatomy, biology and the repercussions of being unprepared. Tony, although embarrassed at first, soon gave up his chagrin and asked questions thick and fast, demanding information that his father gamely and honestly attempted to field. It was a thorough seminar, and afterwards Tony reflected on his newly acquired information, storing it away for immediate application.

He liked girls. He specifically liked their bodies, and how they made _his _body feel. More than that, Tony liked their mannerisms and habits, and scents and exotically alien personas. Girls were a mysterious species to be watched and hunted and conquered. Making a girl smile was fun. Making her laugh was a coup. Kissing her was always a thrill, and beyond that . . . . At that point twelve year old Tony prudently needed quality time by himself in the bathroom.

As an obsessive interest, girls had come before computers, but they took a momentary back seat when he discovered the mathematical beauty of engineering. Not that Tony was about to give them up—sweet as algorithms and circuitry were, they couldn't give him quite the thrill that an unhooked bra could. But then again, robotic schematics didn't whine about not being called, or accuse him of being a pushy boob-grabber.

Girls were more complicated than engineering, with infinitely more variables and just as with engineering, he made a few mistakes along the way.

Puberty brought various needs into distracting focus though, and Tony applied his pragmatic nature to his hormonally charged self in the manner of young males from time immemorial. His father stayed aware of his son's moodiness and frequent disappearances, knowing—praying--that Tony's seething testosterone would settle into a more steady level.

Eventually.

His first heartbreak came at fifteen, when Kelsie Bachenour told him was cute and all, but he was too short. Tony threw away the charm bracelet still in the jeweler's box and swore he would never trust another girl. That lasted until lunch, when the cute blonde at the Burger King had given him an extra order of fries to cheer him up, and Tony asked her out.

It wasn't exactly a rebound, but she tasted of bubblegum and giggled a lot, making out with him all through the movie before telling him after the credits that she already had a boyfriend. That was fine with Tony, who had realized that there were lots of other relays on the motherboard, so to speak.

He was handsome, and that helped. At sixteen, Tony felt glad that his bouts with acne were mild, and that he could manage to grow enough fuzz to make a five o'clock shadow at some point in the week. Fur thickened in other places, along with some muscular definition, and a long-delayed growth spurt finally gave him a chance to look down at his mother.

And he lost his virginity.

Matters had been building in that direction for a while. Girls were willing to go farther with him, and Tony was all for that, yes indeed, because just as changes were shifting his body, they were also remapping those of the girls, and his interest in their bodies was extreme, to put it politely.

To put it *not* so politely, young Mr. Stark was a full-fledged horndog, and would hit on any woman shamelessly. He flattered those who were older than he was, charmed those who were younger than he was and ruthlessly pursued those his same age.

Certain aspects of girls drew his attention, and Tony found himself beginning to zero in on specifics. Like a targeting program, he had the capacity to focus on what attracted him, although his tact required some fine-tuning.

To wit: graceful intelligence. An ability to dress for masculine appeal. A soft voice. Really hot body bits. Any combination of two had his attention. Three had his _full _attention and four—a rarity in his experience—guaranteed the girl in question that Tony would be focusing on her exclusively.

He didn't prioritize the list, so in the odd mix and matches there were girls who had all the intelligence of a potholder, but could make a glacier sweat. There were girls who could flip his circuits, girls who could flirt and flounce and pout, girls who made the bold attempt to gain the upper hand and girls who played hard to get.

Tony chased them all.

The one who succeeded in giving Tony Stark his first sexual conquest was Danielle Montenegro, his lab partner at summer seminar. She was bright, girly, and had more curves than a flexible compass. Tony passed her notes, flirted relentlessly with her, and finally managed to progress from late night pizzas and movie dates to a grasping, gasping session of passion in the back seat of her 1960 Karmann Ghia convertible.

The experience, while claustrophobic, contortionistic and a marvel of determined engineering in itself was also an epiphany for Tony, who decided there and then that if girls provided this sort of incredible pleasure, they were damned well _worth_ a neck cramp, hickies and nail marks along his back.

It also gave him a fondness for sports cars, but that was a minor detail.

Danielle, however, had decided that delicious as the Stark scion was, he needed more practice, and proceeded to pull him away from his studies more and more often. Tony did not object, but Maria Stark did.

Having checked on his attendance with his professors ("Tony who?") Maria Stark realized that her baby boy was in the process of becoming an idiot man, and while this was inevitable, it didn't have to interfere with a perfectly good degree program. Therefore she took it upon herself to arrive at Tony's apartment an hour before his next scheduled class and give her darling son a surprise visit.

While Miss Montenegro was being discreetly escorted out and given a chance to dress in the back of the limo, Maria Stark lovingly smacked the back of her son's head and demanded to know when he was going to start using his _second_ favorite organ again.

Tony tried to protest, but once his mother got going she was like a petite Italian hurricane, so he glumly settled back as she gave him the lecture Howard Stark had missed, namely, the emotional component of human sexuality.

She talked to him about love, about commitment, about what a _relationship _should be. Tony wasn't as interested in this lecture as he had been for his father's, but he was smart enough to nod in all the right places. His mother gradually slowed down and dropped her volume, coming over to take his hands and squeeze them hard before reminding Tony that she and his father weren't going to be around forever, and that thrilling as sex was, the real risk, the only worthwhile risk in life, was falling in love.

Tony remembered both of _those_ points.

Danielle was too humiliated and angry to return his calls, so Tony moped for a week and cheered himself up with a cheerleader. And her best friend after that. And then the best friend's cousin. The string of girls lengthened through the fall, and Tony found that it was easier to conquer than rule.

Girls were . . . complicated, he learned. They wanted exclusivity and attention. Tony didn't _care_ what purse went with what shoes, or if a second helping of salsa was fattening. He learned to be sensitive to neediness, and developed a quickness to retreat. The very word 'love' panicked him a bit.

Love? Love wasn't in his vocabulary. Love was heavy-duty. Love meant giving up the endless salad bar of sex, and at seventeen, Tony Stark was determined to keep cruising that all you can eat buffet for a long, long time, indulging in as many hot tomatoes as he could.

He gained a reputation; two in fact. It was established that Anthony Edward Stark was both a great lay, and a challenge. Many a woman bedded him, none won him. The inequitable paradox was that Tony realized he didn't respect the women who were willing to jump into his bed, and didn't understand the women who weren't. This didn't trouble him too much at first, but it came back in the long, dark nights when he had no company and Tony puzzled on it for a long time.

He graduated. And his parents died.

Tony hit the highest and lowest points of his young life in the same year, and that vicious arc sent him into a spin of dizzying proportions. He might have gone completely out of control if it hadn't been for Obadiah Stane's stabilizing influence. Obadiah drank _with_ him--showed him that the good stuff really was best--and gave him sound advice.

About the business, Obadiah advised turning his talents to making first class weapons. Stark Industries had a reputation to keep, and with Tony's brainpower leading the way, the luster would truly gleam.

About the women, Obadiah merely shrugged and suggested a vasectomy, or at the very least, a team of lawyers and gynecologists on stand-by. After all, he told Tony, no need to rush into a marriage, especially now. Time to enjoy himself; he'd earned the right to some fun.

Tony repeated that to himself several times, and after a while, he started to believe it.

The years rolled on, and through them, it felt to Tony that he could do no wrong. His company thrived, his reputation as a wunderkind wild man flourished and as for the women, well, his bedroom needed a revolving door. By this early thirties, there were damned few variations of sex that Tony Stark hadn't tried, including Shibari, fur massage and narratophilia. Most were fun, a few were disappointing, and ultimately, Tony still hadn't found as much satisfaction as he'd hoped for in them.

He continued to flirt. There were plenty of women around that would never be invited to bed, but Tony still felt the thrill of charming them. The secretaries and office managers at SI adored him. Oprah loved him, so did Katie Couric and possibly a million other women across the planet. Tony tried to accommodate as many as he could, but through it all, disquiet had been growing in him.

Something was missing. Some intangible element was still not in the process, and Tony wasn't sure what that was. Being a good engineer, he tried to analyze it, and the booze helped. He had Rhodey and Obadiah for male bonding, money for partying, and women by the armfuls at any hour of the day or night.

So why did he feel so lonely?

Tony chalked it up to being busy, and drank a bit more to compensate.

Fate stepped into the elevator with him one Thursday morning when a willowy redhead, breathless and sincere, shoved papers in his direction and demanded he look over her figures. Tony reluctantly stopped looking at her _specific _figure and eyed the numbers on the spreadsheet, mentally tallying them up.

The numbers refused to jump through the hoop for him, and Tony took that personally. He caught the redhead by her slender upper arm and un-daintily escorted her to his office, asking her to explain more fully what he was looking at. She did, her soft girly voice emphatic with a sense of righteousness as she pointed out the error that he, Tony Stark, head of the damned company, had made.

It was an oddly embarrassing moment, and it could have been much worse, but the redhead looked at him, a blush behind her freckles and told him that anyone could make a mistake.

That was . . . well, startling. Tony didn't think he was capable of making mistakes. Sure there were setbacks and unexpected results and disappointments and leads that didn't pan out. Those happened to any good engineer. But flat out _mistakes?_

The phone rang, and the redhead picked it up, announced that Mr. Stark was in an important meeting and couldn't be disturbed, then hung up and faced him again. Tony stared at the phone, the spreadsheet and then the redhead.

In two minutes this woman had handled two problems for him without even batting an eye. He asked her her name and she told him. He asked her if she would mind coming with him down to Accounting to iron out this particular issue. She said she'd be happy to. He asked her if she was scared of him, and she said she was terrified.

Tony asked her if she had a nickname, and regretfully, she told him that yes, most people called her Pepper, and yes, it was because of her freckles and could they please just get to Accounting before the stock reports went out for tomorrow morning?

And so they did. Accounting was massively embarrassed on Tony's behalf, but he blew it off, admitting that the ultimate buck was resting with him. He also pointed out that his new personal assistant, Miss Potts, had been the one to spot it.

Miss Potts spluttered _very_ cutely, and let herself be herded back into the elevator, where she glared at him for two whole floors before remembering that Tony Stark was a poker buddy to the president of the United States and the man who signed her paycheck, if only by autopen.

Tony laid out his terms of her promotion, outlining her duties into three quick bullet points. She was to keep him on schedule, she was to make his life run as smoothly as possible and she was to balance his public and personal life.

Pepper asked if that was _all_ and when Tony agreed it was, she went down to HR to hire someone to take her old job and get the paperwork done for her new one. She came back up an hour later, picked up the Gordian Knot that was his daily schedule and set to work.

That had been nearly seven years ago, and Tony congratulated himself weekly for his incredibly wise decision in hiring Potts. She did indeed make his life run smoothly, and managed to put stability back into his schedule, much to the relief of Obadiah and Rhodey. Even the board of SI appreciated Pepper's capacity to keep Tony from becoming too much of a liability or an embarrassment to them.

Early on, out of reflex and curiosity, Tony flirted with Pepper. It was usually provoked by her shoes, which were varied, sexy and always a point of interest for Tony since they led to long and speculative gazes at her legs. Pepper was pretty, and Tony appreciated that, so he let fly a few choice, sweet innuendos.

Pepper smiled and deftly deflected them, her smile soft and her gaze bright. Tony felt an odd sensation because something in her eyes made it clear that although she was flattered, she wasn't going to respond. Not out of fear; she'd stopped fearing him by the end of that first day, when he'd dropped a granite paperweight on his foot and cursed like a longshoreman. No, the look in Pepper's eyes when he flirted with her was one of understanding. Of acceptance.

She understood. Tony was a man who loved women and flirting was as natural to him as breathing and she accepted that.

Tony felt relieved. Then he felt slightly let down.

There _were _women who didn't respond to his flirting. The law of averages dictated there had to be, and he'd run into them along the way, able to categorize them easily. There were the Hard To Gets, who needed more priming to warm up to him. There were the Not Interesteds, a smaller group, but legit for reasons of orientation or marital status or personality.

Pepper was his first Nice Try.

She continued to be a Nice Try and at some point, Tony relaxed. Pepper had seen him at his best and his worst and still worked for him nonetheless. She took his outrageous demands in stride, and was there for him when he needed her, which was more often than Tony liked to admit. Pepper had common sense and a sassy streak and the sort of honest loyalty that money could never buy. Pepper gave him security.

Therefore it was ironic that he left her at home during his trip to Afghanistan, and in hindsight Tony was damned glad that he had. The terrifying events of those three months had been hard enough on Tony; Pepper would have suffered far more in a country that regarded women as little more than property, and Western women in particular as tools of the devil. It had been agonizing to see Yinsen die; had Pepper been the one to die . . .

Tony didn't want to consider what sort of dark turn Iron Man would have taken in those early days if the price for freedom had been Pepper's life.

In any event, he'd gotten out, come back, and the sight of Pepper waiting for him on the tarmac—ahead of Happy, at the foot of the plane's ramp—stunned him. Tony had expected Pepper to meet him, of course, but _cry _for him?

That meant something to Tony. He couldn't process what just yet; there was so much more to do, to catch up on, to create, but the little hot spark of Pepper standing there, red-eyed with her crooked smile stayed with him in the back of his mind.

Things came to a head when he spotted her at the fundraiser, with 'raiser' being the operative word given the dress she was almost wearing. Three months of celibacy compounded with liquor, and Tony clued into an uneasy awareness that Pepper's Nice Try was crumbling away into a new category that he mentally referred to as the 'But, But.'

He had a problem now, because Potts not only had his four priorities in spades-- graceful intelligence, an ability to dress for masculine appeal, a soft voice and really hot body bits—she also had a fifth, critical element. An element he hadn't realized he _needed _from a woman.

She loved him. Tony knew this. Pepper loved him for _him._ If Stark Industries went down the toilet and he lost every dime overnight, Pepper would still be with him. If he ended up horribly mutilated—more so than he was now with an Arc in his chest—she would still be there to change his colostomy bag and wheel him to and from dialysis. If Rhodey turned away and Obadiah betrayed him, Pepper would be the one still there, still loyal.

Which in fact, was what happened.

Tony did what he had to, and Stark Industries was safe. Obadiah was gone, Rhodey was on the periphery, and when Tony tried to talk to Pepper about her But, But, she blandly tried to go back to Nice Try.

Tried, to, anyway. Tony Stark, however, was made of sterner stuff now, and figured the best way to keep Pepper close was to create some fresh chaos for her to deal with. She could pretend that things were back on a Nice Try basis all she wanted; Tony was wiser these days.

He might continue to flirt of course; that was his nature now, and well-established to his persona, and the world was _full _of women. The leopard might be able to don an Iron Suit, but the spots under it would remain the same to a certain degree.

Yet Tony knew that deny it was he might try, what he and Pepper had was beyond flirting. Beyond anything he had _ever_ had with the Charlottes, Janes, Angelines, Saras, Kittys, Kelsies and Danielles and Christines of the world, and while his father's lecture had paved the way for his physical maturity, it was his mother's words that gave him hope for his emotional future.

Tony would bide his time. He would go slow.

After all, he'd been assured nearly thirty years ago that he was good husband material, and if Pepper bringing him meals down in the workshop and fussing over him on a daily basis wasn't playing House . . .

. . . what was?

end


End file.
